The next morning, Nocturne's halls were quieter than ever.
Even the shadows seemed to move more slowly, as though they were listening.
Elara stood before her mirror, brushing her hair in silence. The mark on her wrist had stopped glowing, but she could still feel it faint warmth under her skin, like a sleeping ember waiting to wake.
Her reflection looked different somehow. Paler. Sharper.
And her eyes…
For a moment, they shimmered faintly gold.
She blinked, and the color vanished.
"Elara."
Her name echoed faintly but it wasn't spoken aloud. It came from inside the mirror.
Her hand froze mid-motion.
"Elara," the voice whispered again. Female. Soft. Sad. "You should not have touched the throne."
Elara's breath caught. "Who's there?"
The reflection's lips curved but not in time with her own.
"The palace remembers its queens," the voice said. "And you, child of light, have awakened what sleeps."
The air chilled. Frost formed along the mirror's edge, crawling toward her reflection's hand no, not her reflection at all. A woman stood in her place now. Pale, ethereal, draped in silvery veils that rippled like smoke. Her eyes burned the color of dying suns.
"Who are you?" Elara whispered.
"I was the first," the woman said softly. "The one who wore the crown before him."
The words hit her like a blow. "You… were his queen."
The ghost's expression twisted sorrow and love bleeding into each other. "Once. Before he made the vow."
"What vow?"
But the image flickered, the ghost's form wavering. "You cannot save him," she whispered. "Not unless you break the circle."
Elara leaned forward. "What circle?"
The mirror cracked.
The voice vanished.
And behind her, the chamber door flew open.
Lucien stood in the doorway, his expression dark and unreadable. "You opened a mirror."
Elara turned, startled. "You knew?"
"I know everything this palace touches," he said, stepping closer. "The mirrors are gateways. They show what the curse wants you to see."
"But she wasn't"
"She was dead," he cut in, his tone sharp. "And yet you listened."
Elara's pulse raced. "You said she was the first queen."
Lucien's jaw tensed. "You saw her, then."
"She said you made a vow," Elara pressed. "What did she mean?"
His gaze dropped for the first time and that silence, that pause, said more than any words could. "A vow made in desperation," he said at last, his voice quieter now. "To save her life. To defy the gods. And in doing so, I condemned us both."
Elara took a cautious step toward him. "You loved her."
The corner of his mouth twitched a flicker of something bitter. "Love?" he murmured. "If that is what it was, it burned the world."
She wanted to ask more, but his eyes had gone distant, trapped in memories centuries old.
And then faintly she saw it. The shadows around him thickened, whispering in a tongue she didn't know. The air grew colder.
"Lucien?"
He didn't move.
The darkness stretched from his feet, crawling along the floor like living ink. It touched the mirror and the cracked glass exploded into dust.
Lucien gasped and stumbled back, clutching his temple. The runes along his arm flared red through the sleeve of his coat, glowing like fire under skin.
Elara rushed forward instinctively. "What's happening?"
He gritted his teeth, his voice breaking. "The curse it remembers her too. It feeds on the past."
"Then fight it!"
"I can't," he rasped. "Not when she"
The shadows surged upward, swallowing him in black flame.
Without thinking, Elara reached out. Her hand brushed his, and her mark ignited. Light burst from her palm, flooding the room in radiance so bright the shadows shrieked.
Lucien fell to his knees, panting. The darkness receded slowly, retreating into the corners.
He looked up at her dazed, pale, his eyes no longer red but soft gray.
Human, for the briefest second.
"You…" His voice broke. "You stopped it again."
Elara knelt beside him. "You were fading."
He studied her hand still gripping his. The faint glow had already dimmed, but its warmth lingered between them.
"Every time you touch me," he said slowly, "the curse retreats. It obeys you."
"Then maybe I can help," she said. "Maybe I was brought here for this."
Lucien shook his head, a trace of anguish in his tone. "You don't understand. The curse doesn't vanish it waits. It will want your light as it once wanted hers. And when it takes it, there will be nothing left of you."
Her gaze didn't waver. "Then I'll fight it. I'm not her."
Something flickered in his expression half disbelief, half awe. "No," he whispered. "You're not."
That night, Elara couldn't sleep again.
The mark on her wrist pulsed faintly in time with her heartbeat. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the woman's face in the mirror beautiful and broken and Lucien's haunted eyes when he said, I condemned us both.
Outside her window, thunder rolled. The palace moaned softly in its sleep, dreaming of ghosts.
Elara rose from her bed, the hem of her nightdress brushing the marble. She went to the window and froze.
There, across the courtyard, Lucien stood beneath the storm.
Rain poured over him, but he didn't move. The crown glowed faintly on his head, its dark light pulsing with every strike of lightning.
He looked like a man built of night and sorrow.
And she the one foolish enough to pity him.
But as she watched, his head lifted slightly, and for a heartbeat, his eyes met hers through the rain.
The world went still.
The mark on her wrist burned.
And for the first time, she realized the truth:
Their fates were already intertwined not by chance, but by design.